summer: day 2
Okay so today I don’t have any photos AT ALL. Here, have a moonrise from last week. How I wish I’d had a real camera with me that evening, not just the phone. Last Thursday: Scott and I had just finished dinner at Firestone Brewery in Buellton, CA, where we stopped for the night on our way to pick up Jane from school. This silvery disk rising up over the green hills was impossibly, staggeringly enormous. We had to pull over and marvel at it. I think it was a day short of full. Glorious.
Jenn left a sweet comment on yesterday’s post about loving that kind of slice-of-life blogging. Me too, especially from blog-friends I’ve been reading for so many years now. How strange it is, sometimes, to think of all we’ve been through together without ever actually having met in person. We watch each other’s children grow up; we see books dreamed of and toiled over and published. We’ve seen each other’s blogs through many iterations. The ones I love best are what I now think of as old-school. Old, you know, like way back in 2006. I began in ’05: this January will be ten years. No wonder some of you were stunned to realize that’s how old Wonderboy is. He was a baby when I began, just a year older than this blog. It doesn’t seem possible I’ve been at it this long.
Anyhoo. Today. 🙂 Another errand-y day that chopped up the rhythm I anticipate we’ll fall into next week or sometime soon. Jane started her internship today. We’re still sorting out transportation details but for now I’m going to taxi her, which means I’m suddenly revising my plans to include outings on the west side of town. A friend is planning bimonthly beach days at a time and place that dovetail nicely with Jane’s hours, and then there are our Balboa Park explorer passes whispering our names. I’m kind of psyched to have a logistical reason to have to get out the door.
So this morning Scott went with me to drop Jane off, just for fun, and when we got back it was time for me to take WB to his audiology appointment. Had a crackly hearing aid in need of servicing; he’s now down to just one for a week or two. On the way home we stopped at the farmer’s market and bought an astounding quantity of fruits and vegetables for four dollars. We’ll be making salsa tomorrow.
By the time we returned home, the others had finished lunch. WB and I ate and then I had a little window in which to read a chapter of Charlie to the trio. Roald Dahl, bless you and your short chapters. Back I went to fetch Jane. Rilla watched some My Froggy Stuff videos (a discovery via Karen Edmisten) and there was a Signing Time in there somewhere. Carrots and peanut butter for a morning snack. Oh, and Rose and I managed a Spanish lesson before the whole taxi shift started. We’re using a book called simply Basic Spanish Grammar (2nd edition) which I found on one of our shelves…no idea when or how I acquired it. It’s a nice little book, clear and brisk, a good complement to her Memrise vocabulary studies.
(The Duolingo and iTalki posts I promised before I got sick are still in the works. Later this week, I hope.)
Jennifer says:
I almost said that your post yesterday was a classic, old school blog post. My favorite too. No agenda, just sharing. I hope to join you this summer, friend.
On June 17, 2014 at 5:43 pm
sarah says:
Sometimes I feel odd talking about friends I’ve never actually met except in the light and text of the internet – but truly I have real online friends whom I adore and who enrich my life at all kinds of levels. Blogging has brought about so much joy.
On June 17, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Ellie says:
And may I just share here that, having just met for the first time a friend from inside the computer — we’ve read one another’s blogs for seven years — it is a marvelous thing to do, if one has the chance.
Maybe one day, eh, Lissa? 🙂
On June 17, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Karen Edmisten says:
Ooh, and here are several of my favorite Old Schoolers in the comment box…. 🙂
On June 17, 2014 at 7:19 pm
tanita says:
Oh, that moon – hasn’t it been amazing? I even woke up for a glass of water the other night and just stood stunned at the bathroom window. I wanted to drink it in…
I think drinking in the peace of family days is the very best thing — I love how your summer days just tumble along. Slice-of-life is a good phrase; you’ll be able to look backwards (and your kids as well) and see just how good it was – and smile.
On June 18, 2014 at 7:35 am
selvi says:
I remember you all doing a geology unit a year or two or three ago. Do you have recommendations for books? And how did you figure out where to drive to see things?
On June 18, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Ellie, I am confident that someday our paths will cross in person! I too have had the good fun of meeting online-first friends in real life (hello Jenn and Karen in this very thread) and the joy is great indeed. And if I make it to Kidlitcon this year, I’ll finally get to see Tanita face to face. As opposed to mind-to-mind, which is a deep delight (especially a mind like Tanita’s).
Selvi, the two books we used most were pretty specific to our region: Geology Underfoot in Southern California, which offered short chapters focusing on a specific place, including a couple in our area (ish); and Assembling California by John McPhee, which we found highly readable and great fun (though we only read a few big chunks, in the end). McPhee has lots of similar books set in various regions, so I definitely recommend looking him up. I think I found the Underfoot book while searching for a Roadside Geology volume about SoCal. Struck out on the latter but you might get lucky for your area.
We didn’t take as many field trips as I’d hoped (not ruling them out, though, since no subject is ever really finished, is it?), but the Underfoot book certainly made it easy to compile a destination wish list.
On June 18, 2014 at 3:29 pm